Dance review: Final Jose Mateo Ballet production is 'Moving'

By Iris Fanger/For The Patriot Ledger

Sunday

Apr 15, 2018 at 5:53 PMApr 16, 2018 at 9:41 AM

The final performances by the Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre offer a hail-and-farewell kind of experience, gathering together this long-time viewer’s impressions of 32 years of dance-making by a singularly gifted choreographer-educator. Mateo, an elder statesman of the greater Boston dance world, was recently honored with the 2017 Commonwealth Award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. He has been a stalwart of the dance community as artistic director of his company of 18 performers, along with his dance studios in Cambridge and Dorchester. South Shore ballet students attended his Duxbury studio for 15 years until it closed in 2013.

Although his ballet troupe will close, Mateo will continue his work at the studios, stage his annual production of “The Nutcracker,” and direct the Cambridge June event, “Dance For A World Community.”

The company’s last hurrah, comprises a quartet of works titled “Moving Violations,” which Mateo choreographed between 1991 and the current presentation. His leave-taking is marked by one more world premiere for the full company, “New Pasts,” with a score by the contemporary Bulgarian-born composer (but raised in London), Dobrinka Tabakova.

The most memorable work on the program proved to be the 35-minute opener, “House of Ballet” (1993), set to music by Alfred Schnittke (Gogol Suite). Mateo sets a clutch of ballet icons on stage, led by a tutu-clad Swan Queen, complete with tiara on her head. Wafting in and out, she introduces other familiar figures: a full-skirted waif from George Balanchine’s “Serenade,” a frisky young girl strayed in from “Coppelia,” and the four little Swans, also escaped from “Swan Lake.” They appear overwhelmed by the menacing, black leotard and tights-clad corps de ballet, as if the historic figures are lost in time and space. The Swan Queen (an appealing Haruka Tamura), partnered by Spencer Doru Keith, the most accomplished male dancer in the company, often seems to be a robot or a puppet, manipulated beyond her control. However, in testament to her staying power, she’s the one left on stage at the end, to turn forever in an eternal spotlight.

The center portion of the program consists of a trio of pas de deux from “Timeless Attractions” (2010), performed to music by Alberto Ginastera (String Quartet #2), followed by Mateo’s 1991 “Shubert Adagio” (Quintet in C). Lauren Ganther delivered a stand-out performance of poise and control in the second part of the Ginastera piece. She was partnered by Stephen James in the ballet role of the “porteur,” literally “one who carries,” but has little else to do. The Shubert work, essentially a pas de deux but backed briefly by four other couples, was led by Madeleine Bonn, the most technically assured member of the troupe. Otherwise, she was cool and uninvolved with James, her partner, or with Keith who tried to claim her affection at the end. She gave them not so much as a backward glance, as she paced away from both of them.

“New Pasts,” set to Tabakova’s score sub-titled Suite in Old Style, is filled with rapturous melodies for the violins, as if a tribe of gypsies were in charge. Mateo’s choreography alluded to the folk dance elements by an occasional one-handed gesture behind a head, and a fleeting chorus line of four men and one woman, hands linked on each other’s shoulders. However, the missing element was any sort of passion from the dancers to match the intensity of the music.

Unlike in most other ballet companies, Mateo has created the entire repertory for his troupe over the past 32 years, mostly abstract interpretations of the music that inspired them, except for his yearly mounting of “The Nutcracker.” Although Mateo’s ballets do not tell a story, the music often suggests the tone or emotional state for each work. These works remain as part of his legacy, perhaps to be revived by other companies in the future.

His other major contribution that continues in his studios is his belief that dance is a universal urge for everyone. He often chose dancers for his company that reflected a wide range of shapes and bodies, whether or not they conformed to the general assumptions about professional dancers on stage. Many of his performers grew and prospered from his coaching. As the lights dim on this era in Mateo’s career, let us wish him safe travels and new adventures ahead.